4 Epiphany

Annual Meeting Sunday

January 29, 2022

Micah 5.1-8

 +Today is, of course, our Annual Meeting Sunday.

 And it’s the Sunday when I usually preach a sermon about the uniqueness of this place we call St. Stephen’s.

 And I will do it again today.

 We ARE, as you all know, a very unique place.

 That’s an understatement.

 There are not many church congregations like us.

 Our uniqueness is not just in the fact that we honor Scripture and the saints and social justice and the worth and dignity of all human beings all at once.

 Our uniqueness is the fact that we, unlike many Episcopal Churches, know who we are and what we are.

 And we embrace our uniqueness.

 We wear it proudly like a badge of honor.

 Our uniqueness is not even the fact that we continue to grow and flourish despite the odds. 

This past year, we became home to 17 new members!

 17 new people realized what an amazing place this parish is!

 But there are other congregations like that in the Episcopal Church

 Our uniqueness is just in who we are.

 Our uniqueness is in the fact that we are not a highly polished church with matching pews.

 Our uniqueness is in the fact that when it seems the odds were against us, we find they have actually been with us.

 We are a little church building, far off the beaten trek.

 We are here, tucked away in the far corner of northeast Fargo, in the shadow of the much larger Messiah Lutheran.

 If we brought one of those experts on church growth in, they would tell us this: sell this building, move into a storefront or into some more visible place with much better foot traffic; Etc. Etc. Otherwise, they’ll never find you. And you’ll never grow.

 And, of course:  congregations like ours don’t grow!

 I know that’s what they say, because I’ve heard it again and again.

 I’ve read all same damn books they have!

 But not us.

 Not the rebels that make up St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church.

 Not this Island of Misfit Toys that we are!

 And yet, when I tell people about St. Stephen’s, when I tell them about the amazing growth and vitality here, when I tell them about the diversity and the unique blend of people and spiritual expressions we have here, they are amazed by it.

 Inevitably, I am asked, again and again, what is the secret of St. Stephen’s success.

 And what do I always answer?

 The Holy Spirit.

 Actually, it’s no secret at all.

 And that is what it all comes down to.

 It is our total and complete surrender to God’s Spirit, working in our midst that is our success.

 Well, that, and the hard work we are compelled by the Spirit to do here and in the world.

 That’s it, in a nutshell.

 Isn’t it great that our reading for this Annual Meeting Sunday is that incredible passage from the book of Micah?

 and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

 We love this scripture so much that we had pins made.

 They adorn our doors as we enter.

 We carry those pins with us.

 And we read them often.

 Why?

 Because, we at St. Stephen’s know, THIS is what it’s all about.

 What is it that God requires of us?

 Does God require us to jump through hoops and perform great feats?

 No.

 God only requires of us three things.

 Do Justice.

 Love Kindness

 Walk humbly with God.

 That really sets the standard for us here at St. Stephen’s on this Annual Meeting Sunday in 2023.

 This is what we are called to do here.

 But for us, this scripture reading for today speaks loudly to us and what we do as Christians, as followers of Jesus, as members of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church.

 That is our mission as followers of Jesus.

 How do we do that?

 How do we do Justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God?

 Because let me tell you from experience, it sounds easy.

 But it is not.

 It is not easy to do any of those things.

 But how do I do that in my own life?

 What does that mean to us—to us who are here, in this place, in these mismatched pews, who may be quietly judging this sermon with arms crossed?

 It means that we are not to go about with blinders on regarding those with whom we live and work.

 It means that we are surrounded by a whole range of people who need justice—people who are captive to their own prisons of depression and alcohol and drugs and conforming to society or whatever.

 People who are captive to their grief or their pain or their own cemented views of what they feel the Church—or this congregation of St., Stephen’s—SHOULD be.

 People who have been oppressed by abusive churches, and close-minded clergy and church people.

 Let me tell you, despite what some people in this diocese say, there are people here in this diocese—gay and lesbian and transgender and queer people in this diocese—who are crying out for justice and reconciliation with a diocese that has historically been oppressive to them, that has demeaned them and treated them less than they are.

 Our job in the face of all of this is to cry out again and again for justice

 It does not mean buttoning our lips and trying to keep the status quo.

 It sure as hell does not mean sacrificing justice for the sake of some kind of weak-kneed peace with those who deny such reconciliation.

 It means to stand up.

 It means to speak out.

 It means to say, “No more of this!”

 It is means to demand justice and reconciliation NOW, not in some sweet, vague future when things may or not be better.

 What does it mean to love kindness?

 It means that we are not to go about blind and not to ignore those who are blinded by their own selfishness and self-centeredness.

 And that leads us to our last point.

 What does it mean to walk humbly with God?

 Well, let’s talk about what that is not.

 I am still so amazed by how many people (especially in the Church, amazingly enough) are so caught up in themselves.

 I really think self-centeredness  is a kind of blindness.

 One of the greatest sins in the Church today is not all the things Bishops and church leaders say is dividing the Church.

 The greatest sin in the Church today:

 Hubris.

 Self-centeredness.

 Selfishness.

 Bullying.

 Hubris causes us to look so strongly at ourselves (and at a false projection of ourselves) that we see nothing else but ourselves.

 By reaching out to others, by becoming aware of what others are dealing with, by helping others, we truly open our eyes and see beyond ourselves, it is then that we are truly walking humbly with God.

 This to me is where the heart of all we do here at St. Stephen’s lies.

 It is not in our blind faithfulness to the letter of scripture.

 It is not in our incense and beautiful altar frontals and our stained glass windows and what hangs on our walls and our renovated sacristy.

 (If you are caught up in those things, then there is blindness in that as well). 

 It is not in our smugness that I—the great and wonderful singular me—somehow knows more than the priest or the Church or the Bishops or our elders.

 It is in our humility and the love of God that dwells within each of us.

 It is the Spirit of the living God that is present with us, here, right now, in this church.

 It is in the fact that even if this church building gets blown away, or even if we gloss ourselves up and match our pews and spit-shine our processional cross and preach sermons based squarely on the correct interpretation of scripture (whatever that might be) , we would still be who we are, no matter what.

 We need to be aware that the poor and oppressed of our world—here and now—are not only those who are poor financially.

 The poor and oppressed of our world are those who are morally, spiritually and emotionally poor.

 The oppressed are still women and LGBTQ people in the Church and in the world, or simply those who don’t fit the social structures of our society.

 They are the elderly and the lonely.

 They are those who mourn deeply for those they love and miss who are no longer with us.

 They are the criminals trying to reform their lives, and for those who are just leading quietly desperate lives in our very midst.

 We, as Christians, as followers of Jesus, are to do justice, love kindness and to walk humbly with God.

 We are called to speak out loudly for all those people who are on the margins of our lives both personally and collectively.

 And often those poor oppressed people are the ones to whom we need to be proclaiming this radical message, even if those people might be our own very selves.

 This is how we live out this reading from Micah in our own day.

 I am talking about this holy moment and all moments in which we, anointed and filled with God’s Spirit, go out to share God’s good news by word and example.

 This moment we have been given is holy.

 And it is our job is to proclaim the holiness of this moment.

 When we do so, we are making Micah’s calling a reality again and again.

 This is what we are called to do on this Annual Meeting Sunday.

 And always.

 So, let us do these things.

 Let us bring sight to the blind, and hope to those who are oppressed and hopeless.

 Let us bring true hope in our deeds to those who are crying out (in various ways) for hope.  

 And when we do, we will find the call of the prophet Micah being fulfilled in our very midst.

 Let pray.

 God of Justice, God of mercy, we seek here at St. Stephen’s to do what you call us to do and to walk humbly with you all of the days of our lives; bless us and bless the work of our hands and mouths and efforts to make your Reign present here on earth that we may proclaim to others your love and mercy in our midst: we ask this in the name of Jesus, our brother and our companion on the way. Amen.